The Gospel of St. John

The Mysteries of initiation. The rebirth through Christ Jesus.

LECTURE VIII

Our considerations yesterday taught us that the Christ-impulse, after
having worked through the person of Jesus of Nazareth, united itself
with the evolution of the Earth. Thenceforward its influence in
earthly evolution is such that man is today as powerfully affected by
it as, in earlier days, by that procedure which, as we have seen,
became increasingly dangerous — namely, the withdrawal of the
etheric from the physical body for three and a half days during
initiation. The Christ-impulse works as strongly upon human
consciousness as the abnormal condition of former times. Now you must
understand that such a change could take effect only slowly and by
degrees in human evolution; it could not operate with full power from
the very beginning. Hence it was necessary that a kind of transition
should be provided through the resurrection of Lazarus. Lazarus was in
a condition resembling death for three and a half days; nevertheless
you must realize that this condition was different from the one to
which the old initiates were subjected; it was not produced
artificially by the initiator as in olden times, when the etheric body
was withdrawn from the physical by processes which I may not here
describe. With Lazarus this withdrawal happened in a natural way. You
learn from the Gospel itself that Christ had associated with Lazarus
and his two sisters, Martha and Mary, for it says: ‘The Lord loved
him’ — that means that Christ Jesus had for a long time exerted a
powerful influence on Lazarus, who was sufficiently prepared and ripe
for it, and the consequence was, that it was not necessary, in his
initiation, to induce artificially the three and a half days' trance,
but that, in his case, the condition came of itself, under the
powerful influence of the Christ-impulse. Lazarus was, as it were,
dead for three and a half days; he had experienced in this time the
most important things of all, so that only the last act, the
resurrection, was undertaken by Christ. And whoever is acquainted with
what happened there, recognizes the echo of the old initiation
ceremony, in the words used by Christ Jesus:

‘Lazarus, come forth!’

The resurrected Lazarus was, as we have seen, John, or rather the
writer of St. John's Gospel — he, that is, who could bring into
the world the Gospel of the Being of Christ, as the first initiate in
the Christian sense. We may therefore presume that this Gospel, which
is nowadays so maltreated by purely historical and theological
criticism, and is put down as being only a lyrical hymn, a subjective
utterance of its author — we may presume that it gives us an
insight into the deepest mysteries of the Christ-impulse. For the
materialistic Bible commentators of today, this Gospel of St. John is
a stumbling block, when it is compared with the other so-called
synoptic Gospels. The Christ-figure which they construct for
themselves out of the three other Gospels is very flattering to the
learned gentlemen of our time. It has been stated (even in theological
quarters) that we are concerned here with the ‘simple man of
Nazareth’. It is emphasized again and again that Christ is here shown
to us as perhaps the noblest man who ever trod the earth, but still a
man. Indeed, the tendency is to simplify everything as much as
possible; to the extent of saying: a Plato, a Socrates, and other
great men have existed; and even various grades in their greatness may
be allowed. In truth, the representation of Christ given us by the
Gospel of St. John is very different!

There it is said at the very beginning, that He who dwelt for three
years in the body of Jesus of Nazareth was the Logos, the eternal
Word, also called the ‘eternal creative wisdom’. It cannot be
understood in our time that a man in his thirtieth year could be so
advanced, that he offered up his own Ego and received into himself
another being, a positively super-sensible being, the Christ whom
Zarathustra had addressed as ‘Ahura Mazdao’. Thus the theological
critics believe that the writer of St. John's Gospel is only
describing in a kind of lyrical hymn his own attitude to his Christ,
and nothing more. There is St. John's Gospel on the one hand, and the
other three Gospels on the other; but if an average representation was
required, the Christ could indeed be described as the ‘simple man’,
although of historical greatness. It does not please the new critics
that a divine being should be found in Jesus of Nazareth.

We learn from the Akashic record that, having reached his thirtieth
year, the personality whom we know as Jesus of Nazareth was so far
advanced in maturity, through the sum of his experiences in former
incarnations, that he could offer up his own Ego. For that is what
happened. Being baptized by John, Jesus of Nazareth resolved, as an
Ego, to step out of his physical, etheric, and astral bodies. There
was left a noble frame, a precious physical, etheric, and astral body,
penetrated through and through by the purest and most highly developed
Ego. It was a pure vessel, and could take into itself, at the baptism
by John, the eternal Word, the creative Wisdom. This is told us by the
Akashic record, and, with good will, we can recognize it in the
description given in the Gospel of St. John.

But are we not bound to discuss the beliefs of our materialistic age?
It may perhaps surprise some of you that I speak of theologians as of
materialistic thinkers, thought they are concerned with spiritual
things. But a man's belief and the subject of his investigation do not
matter as much as the way he investigates, regardless of the subject.
When people will have nothing to do with a spiritual world and with
what concerns us here, and confine their attention to the documents,
records, and so on of the material world, with the object of
constructing therefrom the picture of the world, such people are
materialists. It all depends on the means used for investigation, and
we must still discuss these.

If you read the Gospel you will see that there are certain
contradictions in them. Nevertheless, as regards the main points
(which may be described from the Akashic record as essentials) we may
say that the Gospels coincide in a remarkable manner. They all agree
as regards the baptism of Jesus of Nazareth by John, and they all
assign the greatest conceivable importance to it. Again they coincide
in the facts of the Crucifixion and Resurrection. These are precisely
the facts which strike the materialistic thinker of today as being the
most marvellous. On these points there is no discrepancy in the
Gospels. But how shall we deal with the other seeming contradictions?

Two of the Evangelists, Mark and John, begin with the baptism by John.
They relate the last three years of the life of Christ Jesus,
confining themselves to what happened after the Christ-spirit had
taken possession of the threefold covering of Jesus of Nazareth —
of his physical, etheric, and astral bodies. Then we have the two
Gospels according to Matthew and Luke. They give in addition the
earlier history, which, in the sense of the Akashic record, is the
history of Jesus of Nazareth before the sacrifice of himself to the
Christ. The seekers for contradiction find, to begin with, that
Matthew gives a line of ancestors back to Abraham, while Luke gives a
genealogy reaching back to Adam, and from Adam to the father of Adam,
God Himself. Another contradiction could then be found in the fact
that, according to Matthew, three wise men or Magi, led by a star,
came to greet the new born Jesus, while Luke tells of the shepherds'
vision, of their adoration of the Child, and of the presentation in
the Temple, against which Matthew tells of Herod's persecution, the
flight into Egypt, and the return. These and many other details might
strike one as contradictions. We can deal with these if we go further
into the facts supplied to us by the Akashic record independently of
the Gospels.

The Akashic record tells us that about the time given in the Bible
(the difference of a few years does not matter) Jesus of Nazareth was
born. In his body there lived an individuality who had experienced
high degrees of initiation in earlier incarnations, and had gained a
profound insight into the spiritual world. Yes, the Akashic record,
which furnishes the one and only real history, tells us still more,
but I will merely indicate it in outline to begin with. We are told
that he who appeared in Jesus of Nazareth had gone through various
earlier incarnations in various parts, and we are led back to the time
when this bearer of the later name ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ had attained,
in the Persian world, a remarkably high state of initiation and
performed a work of the highest significance. The Akashic record shows
how this individuality had already worked in the spiritual world of
the ancient Persians, how he looked up to the Sun and addressed the
high Sun-spirit as ‘Ahura Mazdao’. We must realize that it was into
the bodies of this individuality, who had gone through these
incarnations, that Christ entered. What does that mean, ‘Christ
entered into the bodies of this individuality’? It simply means that
the Christ used these three bodies — the astral, the etheric, the
physical — for His life and work upon Earth. All that we think
and express in words, all our feelings and sensations depend upon our
astral body. It is the bearer of all this. For thirty years Jesus of
Nazareth lived as an Ego in this astral body, imparting to it all that
he had experienced and assimilated in earlier incarnations. In what
form, then, could this astral body shape its thoughts? It adapted and
joined itself to the individuality which lived in it for thirty years.
When Zarathustra, in ancient Persia, looked up to the Sun and spoke of
Ahura Mazdao — that imprinted itself upon the astral body. Into
this astral body Christ now entered. Was it not natural, therefore,
that when Christ used images of thought and vented His feeling, He
should clothe these expressions in what his astral body offered Him?
For if you wear a grey coat, you appear to the outside world in a grey
coat. Christ appeared to the outside world in the body of Jesus of
Nazareth (in his physical, etheric, and astral bodies), so that His
thoughts and feelings were coloured by the thoughts and feelings which
were in the body of Jesus of Nazareth. What wonder, then, that in many
of His utterances, as related in the Gospel of St. John, we catch the
echo of ancient Persia and of expressions used in ancient Persian
initiation! For the impulse which was in Christ passed over to His
disciple, to the resurrected Lazarus. Thus it is as though the astral
body of Jesus of Nazareth were speaking to us through St. John in his
Gospel; no wonder that we catch the tone of much that is Persian, and
that expressions are used which recall the old Persian initiation and
its forms of thought. In Persia they did not address the spirits that
are connected with the Sun only as ‘Ahura Mazdao’; the expression
‘Vohumanu’ was also used, that is, the creative Word or the creative
Spirit. The ‘Logos’ in the sense of ‘creative power’ was first used in
Persian initiation, and we meet it again in the very first verse of
St. John's Gospel. Many other things in this Gospel will be
intelligible to us when we know that Christ Himself spoke through an
astral body that had served Jesus of Nazareth for thirty years, and
that this individuality was the reincarnation of an old Persian
initiate. It could be clearly shown in many instances how the Gospel
of St. John, this most intimate of the Gospels, by using words derived
from the secrets of initiation, thereby reflects the old Persian mode
of expression transmitted into later times.

Now what can be said in this respect of the other Gospels? To
understand this, we must recall some of the facts explained in the
foregoing lectures.

We have already heard that there were high spiritual beings who
transferred their scene of action to the Sun when the latter separated
from the Earth. We also remarked that the outer astral forms of these
beings were to a certain extent the counterpart of certain animal
forms here on the earth. There was the form of the ‘Bull-spirits’, the
spiritual counterpart of the animal species having the functions of
nourishment and digestion as the essential characteristic of their
development. The spiritual counterpart is of course of high spiritual
nature, however low the earthly image may appear. Thus we have high
spiritual beings who, having transferred their scene of action to the
Sun, work from there upon the Earth-sphere in the nature of
‘Bull-spirits’. Others appear as ‘Lion-spirits’, whose counterpart is
seen in the animal species in whom the organs pertaining to the heart
and the circulation of the blood are pre-eminently developed. Then we
have the beings whose animal counterpart we meet in the eagle species
— the ‘Eagle-spirits’. Finally we have the beings who unite the
other natures in a harmonious synthesis — the ‘Man-spirits’.
These were in a certain sense the most advanced of the beings. Now let
us return to the old initiation. It made it possible for men to see
face to face the high spiritual beings who progressed ahead of men.
But inasmuch as men had descended in earlier times from Mars, Jupiter,
Saturn, and Venus, they were ere initiated in correspondingly
different ways. Even in Atlantis there were many and various oracles.
There were some in which spiritual vision was as directed especially
towards the beings we have described as ‘Eagle-spirits’, while others
saw the ‘Lion-spirits’, the ‘Bull-spirits’, and others again the
‘Man-spirits’. This was determined according to the special character
of the candidates for initiation. These differences were one of the
peculiarities of Atlantean times and their echo persisted even in our
post Atlantean times. There were sanctuaries in Asia Minor and Egypt
in which the initiated saw the high spiritual beings as Bull-spirits
or Eagle-spirits. These Mysteries were the source from which outer
civilization issued. Those who perceived the high spiritual beings in
the ‘Lion’ form, created for themselves a kind of image of what they
had seen, in the body of the lion. Then they said: ‘These spirits have
a share in the genesis of man’, and gave the lion's body a human head.
This was the origin of the Sphinx. Those who had seen the Bull-spirits
introduced Bull worship <Crect during decadence in Spain> in
token of their vision of the spiritual world; this led to the worship
of the Apis Bull in Egypt and the Mithras Bull in Persia. For all the
outward religious practices of the various peoples had their rise in
the rites of initiation. There were everywhere initiates whose
spiritual vision was directed pre-eminently towards the Bull-spirits,
while others were concerned with the Eagle-spirits and so on. We can
also indicate to a certain extent the difference between the various
kinds of initiation. The initiates to whom the spiritual beings
appeared in the form of Bull-spirits were particularly instructed in
the secret properties of human nature pertaining to the glandular,
that is, to the etheric system. Furthermore they were initiated in yet
another region of human nature — the part which clings to the
earth, being firmly forged to it. This was seen by those who were
initiated into the ‘Bull’ mysteries.

Let us try to put ourselves into the temper of mind of such an
initiate. From his great teacher he had heard how man descended from
divine heights, the first men being descendants of divine spiritual
beings. The first men were thus traces back to their father
God. So man descended to Earth and passed from earth-form to
earth-form. These initiates were especially interested in the
earth-bound element and in all that men experienced at a time when
they counted the divine spiritual beings as their ancestors. With the
Eagle-initiates it was different. They saw those spiritual beings who
are related to men in a peculiar way. But to understand this we must
first say a few words concerning the spiritual nature of the bird
species.

In animals we see beings whose lower organization makes them rank
below man; for they became prematurely hardened and failed to retain
their physical substance in a soft and flexible state, until the
moment when they might have assumed human form. In the bird species we
have beings who did not assume the lowest functions, but skipped over
that point. They did not descend low enough, as it were; they kept
themselves in too soft a substance, while the others lived in too hard
a substance. As evolution progressed, outward circumstances compelled
them to densify. So they densified in a manner suitable to a nature
that was too soft and had not descended low enough on to earth. That
is a somewhat crude and popular way of expressing it, but it gives the
facts. The spiritual prototypes corresponding to these bird natures
are beings who overstepped the mark in an upward direction; they
persisted in too soft a substance and, in the course of their
development, flew over what they might have become at a particular
moment. They err in an upward, and the others in a downward direction
. The Lion-spirits occupy the middle position, they and the harmonized
spirits who rightly conformed with the trend of development — the
Man-spirits.

Now, as we have realized, those who had something of the old
initiation were receptive for the influence exerted by the
Christ-event. They had formerly possessed insight into the spiritual
world in accordance with their particular initiation. The initiates of
a great part of Egypt, who had partaken of the ‘Bull’ initiation,
could say: ‘We can see into the spiritual world; the high spiritual
beings appear to us in the counterpart of the Bull-nature in man.’ But
those who had come into contact with the Christ-impulse could now add:
‘But now the Lord of the spiritual realm has appeared to us in His
true form. Out earlier vision, to which we ascended through the stages
of initiation, showed us a preliminary form for the Christ. Christ, it
is, whom we must now place in the centre of our vision. If we bear in
mind everything that we have seen, everything that the spiritual world
has by degrees disclosed to us, where would all this have led us,
provided our level had been already high enough at that time? It would
have led us to Christ!’ Such an initiate described the way into the
spiritual world in the sense of the Bull-initiation. But then he
added: ‘The truth, which is in the spiritual world, that is Christ!’,
and the Lion- and Eagle-initiates spoke likewise.

All these initiation Mysteries had definite rules as to how the
candidate should be led into the spiritual world. The ritual according
to which the spiritual world should be entered, differed, in different
places. In Asia Minor and Egypt there were Mysteries of many and
various shades, in which it was the practice to lead the initiates to
a perception of the ‘Bull’ nature, or the ‘Lion-spirits’ and so on.
And now let us understand, from this point of view, those whose former
initiations had rendered them ripe to feel the Christ-impulse and
comprehend Christ in the right way. Let us consider an initiate who
had gone through the stages leading to the perception of the
‘Man-spirit’. He could say to himself: ‘The true Lord of the spiritual
world has appeared to me. He is Christ, who lived in Jesus of
Nazareth. What has led me to him? My old initiation!’ He knew the
steps which led to the vision of the ‘Man-spirit’. Thus he described
what a man experiences in order to attain initiation, and above all to
recognize the Christ-nature. His knowledge of initiation was in
accordance with the directions given in those Mysteries which led to
the ‘Man’-initiation. Therefore the high initiate who was in the body
of Jesus of Nazareth (before the Christ descended) appeared to him in
the symbol of the Mysteries which he had gone through and which he
knew. His description accorded with his own view of the subject, and
that is the case with Matthew's description. Hence an older tradition
is altogether to the point when it connects the writer of the Gospel
of St. Matthew with that one of the four symbols shown here on the
capitals of the columns, on the right and on the left — the
symbol which we designate as the ‘symbol of man’. <Ed. These two
columns and the seven-armed candelabra decorated the lecture room,
which also contained a plastic figure by Professor Bernwitz
representing the Archangel Michael.> An older tradition connects
the writer of the Matthew Gospel with the ‘Man’-spirit, for the reason
that he adopted at his point of departure the initiation of the
‘Man’-mysteries into which he was acquainted. For at the time of the
Gospels it was not customary to write biographies as people do
nowadays. What appeared of primary importance to people in those days
was the fact that a high initiate was there, who had received the
Christ into himself. They were chiefly concerned with the question,
how a man becomes an initiate and what he experiences as an initiate.
Therefore they pass over the outward daily events which appear so
important to the present day biographer. What does a modern biographer
leave undone in order to gather sufficient material! Frederick
Theodore Vischer once used a very good simile at the expense of a
learned gentleman, in ridiculing the way in which modern biographies
are written. He said: ‘A young scholar once set out to write a
disquisition of Goethe. He first devoted himself to the preparatory
work and gathered all the material he needed. But not content with
that, he went into all the houses in all the towns where Goethe had
lived, rummaged about in every loft, searched in every room, raised
dust from all the corners, upset evil smelling dust bins, and all in
order to find everything there was to find with a view to writing a
dissertation “On the Connection of Frau Christiane von Goethe's
Chilblains with the Mythological, Allegorical, Symbolic Figures in the
Second part of Faust”!’ That is putting it rather strongly, but,
in spirit, it fits the writers of modern biographies. Authors who wish
to write about Goethe poke about in every possible rubbish heap in
order to write their biographies. The word ‘discretion’ has become an
unknown quantity nowadays.

Very different was the manner in which the writers of the Gospels
described the life of Jesus of Nazareth. For them, all ordinary events
sank into insignificance when compared with the successive stages
which Jesus of Nazareth had to traverse as an initiate. This was the
subject of their narrative, but each described it in his own way and
as he himself knew it. Matthew describes it in the manner of one who
has been initiated into the Mysteries of the ‘Man-spirit.’

This initiation was closely related to the Egyptian wisdom. We can
also now understand how the writer of the Gospel according to St. Luke
arrived at his particular description. He was one of those who in
former incarnations had been initiated into the Mysteries of the
‘Bull-spirit’. He described the facts which corresponded to such an
initiation, saying: ‘Such are the stages which a great initiate must
have traversed!’ And he gave his own colouring to his description. He
was one of those who in former incarnations had lived chiefly within
the Egyptian Mysteries, and it is therefore not surprising that he
should mention a trait which is characteristic of the Egyptian type of
initiation. He said to himself: ‘In the individuality who was in the
body of Jesus of Nazareth there lived a high initiate. I have learnt
the path which leads through the Egyptian Mysteries to the
“Bull”-initiation. Of that I am sure. An initiate of so high
a grade as Jesus of Nazareth must have passed through an Egyptian
initiation in addition to all the other initiations, in his former
incarnations.’ Thus we have in Jesus of Nazareth an initiate who had
experienced Egyptian initiation. The other evangelists were of course
also aware of this, but they did not attach special importance to it,
because they were not so familiar with this particular aspect of
initiation. Hence a particular characteristic of Jesus of Nazareth did
not strike them. I said in the first lectures that something unusual
is connected with the reappearance of an initiate on earth. Certain
definite events take place which seem like a repetition in the other
world of former experiences. Let us assume a man had been initiated in
ancient Ireland; he must now be reminded of this old Irish initiation
by some outer event in his life. This would ensue, for instance, if he
were induced by circumstances to make a journey to Ireland. This Irish
journey would be a striking incident in the eyes of one closely
acquainted with Irish initiation, while others would think less of it,
being unfamiliar with that initiation. The individuality who lived in
Jesus of Nazareth had been initiated also in the Egyptian Mysteries.
Hence his journey to Egypt. Who therefore was likely to be
particularly struck by the ‘Flight into Egypt’? One who knew such a
journey by personal experience and described this particular incident
because he was aware of its significance. It is described in the
Gospel of St. Matthew because the writer knew from his own initiation
what a journey to Egypt meant for many initiates in olden times. Again
since we know that the writer of the Gospel of St. Luke derived his
knowledge of initiation especially from the Egyptian Mysteries with
which Bull-worship was connected, you will agree that the association
of this evangelist with the symbol of the Bull, according to an older
tradition, is not without justification. For certain good reasons
which cannot be given here for lack of time, he does not describe the
journey to Egypt. But he mentions typical events the importance of
which could best be estimated by one familiar with Egyptian
initiation. The writer of the Gospel of St. Matthew gives a more
external description of the career of Jesus of Nazareth, as in the
‘Flight into Egypt’; the writer of St. Luke sees the whole course of
events in the spirit conferred by an Egyptian initiation.

Now let us consider the writer of the Gospel according to St. Mark. He
omits all preliminary history and describes in particular the life and
work of Christ in the body of Jesus of Nazareth for the period of
three years. In this respect the Gospels of St. Mark and St. John are
in complete agreement. The writer of St. Mark passed through an
initiation closely resembling the initiations of Asia Minor or even
Greece, and it may be said that these European-Asiatic, heathen
initiations were at that time the latest. Their reflection in the
outer world was in the sense that a high personality who had
experienced a certain initiation, owes his origin not merely to a
natural but to a supernatural event. Remember that those who venerated
Plato and desired to think of him in the right way, were not
especially interested in the identity of his earthly father. In their
eyes, the soul of Plato in the body of Plato is born as a high
spiritual being fructifying his lower humanity. Hence they ascribed to
the god Apollo the birth of that Plato who was so precious to them
— the awakened Plato. To them, Plato was the son of Apollo.
Precisely in these Mysteries it was usual to pay no special attention
to the previous life of the person in question but to concentrate upon
the point of time when he became what is called a ‘son of God’, as we
find so often mentioned in the Gospels. Plato a son of God! Such was
he called by those whose veneration for him and whose knowledge of his
nature was of the noblest kind. At the same time we must realize to
what extent this manner of regarding the gods affected the human life
of such sons of God on Earth. It was precisely in this (fourth) period
of civilization that men became most attached to the world of the
physical senses and learned to love the Earth. The old gods were dear
to them because they could show in what manner the highest sons of
Earth were ‘sons of the gods’. These personalities sojourning here
upon Earth were to be described in this way. The author of the Gospel
according to St. mark was a writer in this sense. His description is
confined to what happened after the baptism by John. His initiation
has led him to the knowledge of the higher worlds in the image of the
‘Lion-spirit’. Hence in the old tradition, this writer had been
associated with the symbol of the Lion. And now let me turn once more
to the Gospel of St. John.

We have said that the writer of this Gospel was initiated by Christ
Himself. He could therefore give his work something which contained in
germ the active influence of the Christ-impulse, both for the present
and for remote future ages. What he proclaims will hold good in the
most distant future. He is one of those of whom we have spoken as
‘Eagle’ initiates, who had transcended the normal point. The normal
instruction for that time is given by the writer of St. Mark. All that
transcends that time, all that reveals to us the working of Christ in
the far future, soaring above earthly attachments — all that is
found in St. John. Tradition therefore associates him with the symbol
of the Eagle. Thus we see that an old tradition like this, associating
the Evangelists with what may be said to constitute the real nature of
their own past initiation, cannot possibly be founded upon mere fancy,
but that it springs from the deepest foundations of Christian
evolution. Thus deeply must we penetrate beneath the surface of
things! We then understand that the chief events in the life of Christ
Jesus are narrated in the same manner by all the Evangelists, but that
each described Christ Jesus as he understood Him and according to the
character of His initiation. This has been touched upon in my book
Christianity as Mystical Fact, but in a way suitable for an unprepared
public; for the book was written at the beginning of our
anthroposophical movement and takes into consideration the
contemporary lack of understanding in respect of occult facts.

We realize therefore that light is thrown upon the Christ-figure from
four sides: by each of the Evangelists from the side he knew best.
That Christ has many sides you will readily believe, in view of the
mighty impulse which He has given. But this I said: All four Gospels
agree on the following points: that the Christ-Being Himself descended
from divine spiritual heights at the Baptism by John; that He dwelt in
the body of Jesus of Nazareth; that He suffered death on the Cross and
conquered death. We shall return later to the Mystery of the Death on
the Cross, but let us think of it today in the light of the question:
‘What is the most striking feature in the Death on the Cross as
regards the Christ-Being?’ To this we must answer that the
characteristic feature of this event is the fact that there is no
difference between the life that preceded and the life that followed
it. The essential factor in the Death of Christ is that Christ passed
through death unchanged, that He remained the Same, that He was the
One who demonstrated the insignificance of death, so that all who were
acquainted with the true nature of the Death of Christ believed in the
living Christ.

Seen from this point of view, what was the meaning of the vision on
the road to Damascus, when he who was called Saul became Paul? Paul
knew from what he had formerly learnt that the Spirit first seen by
Zarathustra on the Sun as Ahura Mazdao, and then beheld by Moses in
the burning bush and in the fire on Sinai, was gradually nearing the
Earth; he also knew that this Spirit must enter a human body. But
Paul, while he was still Saul, could not understand that he who was to
be the bearer of the Christ must needs suffer the shameful death on
the Cross. He could only imagine that when Christ came, He must come
in triumph and, once He had approached the Earth, must abide in all
that the Earth contains. Paul could not imagine that he who had hung
upon the Cross had been the bearer of the Christ. The death on the
Cross, its shame and everything connected therewith, prevented Paul
from recognizing that Christ had truly been there upon Earth. Hence it
was necessary that something should happen to convince him that the
Individuality in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, hanging on the Cross,
was the very Christ, the Christ who had been on Earth. Clairvoyant,
that is what Paul became on the road to Damascus; and his vision
convinced him of the truth! To the eye of the seer the spiritual world
appeared changed after the Event of Golgotha. Before that event the
seer did not find Christ in the spiritual worlds; after Golgotha He
could be seen in the aura of the Earth. That is the difference. And
Paul said to himself: ‘As a seer, I can be convinced that in him who
hung upon the Cross and lived as Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ was
present, who is now in the aura of the Earth!’ In the aura of the
Earth he saw the Being first seen by Zarathustra as Ahura Mazdao on
the Sun. Now he knew that He who hung upon the Cross was risen. He
could therefore say: ‘Christ is risen! He has appeared to me, as He
appeared to Cephas, to the other brethren, and to the five hundred at
the same time!’ And Paul now became the herald of the living Christ,
for whom death has not the same meaning as for other men.

When doubt is cast on Christ's death on the Cross, one who knows the
truth will agree with the Suabian author of the book entitled Origins
of Christianity, which contains all the most reliable historical
material bearing upon the subject. Gfrörer, the writer to whom we
refer, justly laid stress on the Death of the Cross, and we can
sympathize with him when he says in his somewhat sarcastic manner,
that if anyone were to contradict him on this point he would look him
critically in the face and ask whether something was not ‘out of order
beneath his hat’! This is one of the most certain facts of
Christianity. The Death on the Cross, and that which we shall describe
tomorrow as the Resurrection, and as the effect of the words, ‘Lo, I
am with you always, even unto the end of the world!’ — these
facts constitute the essence of Paul's teaching. For him, the
Resurrection of Christ is the starting-point of Christianity. We might
say that it is only in our own day that people have begun again to
reflect a little upon these things, not as the subject of theological
controversy, but as the vital question of Christianity. The great
philosopher Solovioff assumes, strictly speaking, the Pauline
standpoint when he says: ‘Everything in Christianity centres upon the
idea of Resurrection; and if this idea be not believed or understood,
a Christianity of the future is impossible.’ He repeats, after his
fashion, Paul's words: ‘If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching
vain and our faith is also vain!’ Then the Christ-impulse is
impossible. Indeed, there could be no Christianity without the risen,
living Christ.

It is a striking fact, and we may therefore draw attention to it, that
isolated profound thinkers come to recognize the truth of this Pauline
saying, purely from their own philosophy and quite without occultism.
If we devote some attention to such minds we see that, in certain
cases, ideas are being formed, already in our time, of what will one
day constitute human belief and human conceptions of the world —
that is, of the knowledge which spiritual science must bring. But
without spiritual science, even a profound thinker like Solovioff
cannot get beyond empty conceptual forms. His systems of philosophy
are like conceptual receptacles into which must be poured the content
they require and for which they have fashioned the mould — the
content they do not possess, for it can be derived alone from the
anthroposophical movement. Anthroposophy will pour that living water,
the message of the facts of the spiritual world, occult knowledge,
into these vessels, and bring its gifts to the noble minds who show
that they require Anthroposophy, and whose tragic fate it is that they
have not been able to find it. Of such minds it is not too much to say
that they thirst for Anthroposophy, but they have not been able to
find it. Anthroposophical knowledge must flow into such prepared
vessels, and enable these minds to form clear and true ideas regarding
such cardinal events as the Christ-event and the Mystery of Golgotha.
On these subjects only Anthroposophy or spiritual science can
enlighten us with its revelation of the realms of the spiritual world.
Indeed, the Mystery of Golgotha cannot be understood in our day save
through Anthroposophy or spiritual science.